SPEAKER_00: This podcast is a ministry of Grand Parkway Baptist Church, helping people know, enjoy, and glorify God.
SPEAKER_00: For more information about Grant Parkway, visit GrantProquay.org.
SPEAKER_01: You can be seated.
SPEAKER_01: My name is Lance Williams, and I'm the Spiritual Formation Pastor here at Grand Parkway Baptist Church.
SPEAKER_01: It is my privilege to be able to continue on in this series on community.
SPEAKER_01: And as we do so, let me just kind of catch everybody up.
SPEAKER_01: I know that we've got a lot of visitors here in our second service at 10 o'clock.
SPEAKER_01: So let me just catch everybody up where we've been this summer.
SPEAKER_01: Over uh the month of June, we talked about um we talked about the gospel, right?
SPEAKER_01: And these are our core values over the summer.
SPEAKER_01: We talked about the gospel.
SPEAKER_01: And then this month, in the month of July, we're talking about community.
SPEAKER_01: And as we've done so, that first Sunday in community, we talked about the value of community.
SPEAKER_01: Not just that we value it, but it's valuable for our lives.
SPEAKER_01: And we in that first week, we talked about and we really discovered how it is that Jesus defines community for us.
SPEAKER_01: And he defined it basically like this: for where two or more are gathered for the purpose of glorifying and making Jesus' name great.
SPEAKER_01: Okay?
SPEAKER_01: So that was as simple as it became, and then all of a sudden we started to journey together last week in the growing community.
SPEAKER_01: And if we had to boil last week down into one or two statements, we could boil it down like this.
SPEAKER_01: Are we becoming a people, a growing community?
SPEAKER_01: Are we becoming that growing community that puts the things of God above the things of man, or are we doing the opposite?
SPEAKER_01: And we saw that great example of when Jesus rebuked Peter for being and acting like Satan.
SPEAKER_01: And how is it that we act like Satan when we put the things of man above the things of God?
SPEAKER_01: And so if we're going to be a growing community, we've got to have the right priorities, right?
SPEAKER_01: Seeking first the kingdom of God.
SPEAKER_01: And then everything else kind of gets put in its proper place.
SPEAKER_01: And then today, not just that it's a valuable thing, not just that we're growing together in community, but oh, today we talk about our individual relationships and the value of spiritual friendships.
SPEAKER_01: And so as we look at that today, I want to talk to you today about four commitments, four baseline commitments of spiritual friends.
SPEAKER_01: When I say the word spiritual friends, many of you just got really confused.
SPEAKER_01: And that's okay.
SPEAKER_01: It's not a word or phrase that we use very often, but it is a word or a phrase that the community of God has used for centuries.
SPEAKER_01: And a lot of people have written about spiritual friendship.
SPEAKER_01: Uh matter of fact, so much has been written that there's way too much for this sermon, and so I cut a lot of it.
SPEAKER_01: But if you want resources and information, I can guarantee you I've got plenty of them.
SPEAKER_01: And so please come and find me if you want to read a book or two on spiritual friendship and on community, and specifically about what it looks like to be a friend.
SPEAKER_01: Um so when I talk about this, um, I got a lot of what I'm gonna say from a mentor and a professor of mine in seminary.
SPEAKER_01: His name is Barry Jones.
SPEAKER_01: And so I forgot to mention his name in the first service, and I wanted to make sure that I mention his name because a lot of this comes from dialogue with him, conversations with him, sitting at coffee with him, and just being his friend and him being my friend.
SPEAKER_01: And so a lot of this comes from him.
SPEAKER_01: But having said all of that, when I'm talking about spiritual friendship, I'm talking about just that inner circle of people that you know and trust and can entrust yourself to.
SPEAKER_01: And that may sound weird that you kind of have an inner circle.
SPEAKER_01: It may sound kind of like favoritism, but let me just kind of point all of us back to the way that Jesus lived.
SPEAKER_01: He had an inner circle, and they were called his disciples.
SPEAKER_01: He didn't treat his disciples like he treated everybody else.
SPEAKER_01: Instead, he kind of gathered them to himself and explained parables to them, things that the rest of the crowd didn't get, but that wasn't good enough for him.
SPEAKER_01: Instead, he had an even uh a closer circle of friends, his inner circle of James, John, and Peter that he invited into things with them that the other guys didn't get.
SPEAKER_01: Okay?
SPEAKER_01: They got to be on the Mount of Transfiguration.
SPEAKER_01: They were there at the Garden of Gethsemane when he was arrested.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, he had an inner circle of people, of men that he trusted, and when they let him down, he let them know it.
SPEAKER_01: That's what he did in the garden, and that's what he does for them at the end here as we open up our Bibles in John chapter 15, as he kind of talks about and introduces this idea of what friendship really is.
SPEAKER_01: And as we as you guys are turning there, John 15, verse 12 to 17, let me just say this that a lot of us think that friendship or friends are those people that you hang out with in college and you hang out with before you get married, and you hang out with before you kind of start having kids.
SPEAKER_01: But let me kind of reorient all of us that if we're gonna be the husbands and the wives that we're called to be, and if we're gonna become the parents that we're called to be, the only way that we're gonna be able to do that is if we have those really close spiritual friends to help us become the husband or the wife or the mom or the dad or the whomever that God is calling us to be.
SPEAKER_01: That only happens when we have this kind of inner circle group of friends that will help us along the way.
SPEAKER_01: It's the only way it happens.
SPEAKER_01: It says one uh very popular Christian counselor said, he says, the reason, and he's a counselor, the reason therapists are so busy is that there are so few spiritual friends.
SPEAKER_01: How could we change as a people if we just became and were these four things that we're gonna look at out of the scriptures?
SPEAKER_01: And so as I we look at John chapter uh 15, verse 12 to 17, um, we're gonna start there and we're gonna be introduced to the value of friendship, and then we're gonna kind of jump off of all kinds of different places in the Bible.
SPEAKER_01: So hang with me.
SPEAKER_01: If you've got your Bible, we're gonna use it for sure.
SPEAKER_01: Um, and if you don't, and even if you do, don't worry about catching up with where I'm going.
SPEAKER_01: Instead, everything's gonna be up on the screen, okay?
SPEAKER_01: So don't freak out, but we are gonna be in John 15, verse 12, which I'll read now.
SPEAKER_01: It says this.
SPEAKER_01: And if we look at the context, we'll understand that this is Jesus' last night on earth, and he's got his buddies, his eleven now remaining guys, that he's uh got with him, and he is telling them what it looks like to be a follower and a disciple of Jesus, and he says, Hey, you gotta abide in me, and you when you abide in me, you will bear much fruit.
SPEAKER_01: In the middle of that that sermon, so to speak, he says this, verse 12 This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.
SPEAKER_01: Greater love has no one than this, that someone laid down his life for his friends.
SPEAKER_01: You are my friends, if you do what I command you.
SPEAKER_01: No longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not know what his master is doing, but I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from my father I have made known to you.
SPEAKER_01: You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit, and that your fruit should abide, so that whatever you ask in my name, he may give it to you.
SPEAKER_01: These things I command you so that you will love one another.
SPEAKER_01: So no matter where we are in this friendship thing, no matter if our life says we value it, no matter if our tongues say we value it, Jesus clearly valued friendship.
SPEAKER_01: It's the very thing that he kind of redefined for his disciples when he said, Hey, I'm not gonna call you a slave anymore.
SPEAKER_01: I'm calling you my friends, my peers, co-heirs.
SPEAKER_01: Remember, the Bible says co-heirs with Christ.
SPEAKER_01: There's a mutuality here that now I expect of you guys.
SPEAKER_01: And he redefines who they are.
SPEAKER_01: And I read all of that and explain all of that because I want you to know this.
SPEAKER_01: As introduction to this thing called friendship, it was reserved for two people in the Old Testament.
SPEAKER_01: And Jesus says you're his friend.
SPEAKER_01: Friendship with God was reserved for two people in the Old Testament.
SPEAKER_01: And if you are a follower of Jesus, he says that you have that kind of special access to God.
SPEAKER_01: And those two people in the Old Testament are Abraham and Moses.
SPEAKER_01: And that's it.
SPEAKER_01: There's no one else with certainty that the Bible says they were a friend of God other than Abraham and Moses.
SPEAKER_01: So you think about Moses, and you think about a guy named Abraham.
SPEAKER_01: They talked with him, they spent time with him.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, Moses came down from the mountain and he spent such good quality time with God that his face literally glowed.
SPEAKER_01: That's the kind of access that we have now with God through Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: So I want to just kind of invite us to think about the value of this before we even describe the four major and baseline components and commitments of spiritual friendship.
SPEAKER_01: So that's just an invitation before we start to dig in all over the place of the Bible out of John 15.
SPEAKER_01: And so now that we've got that, let's look into these four commitments of spiritual friends.
SPEAKER_01: The first one is this presence.
SPEAKER_01: If we're going to become friends, if we're going to come become the people that God's called us to, the first commitment is presence.
SPEAKER_01: What do I mean by presence?
SPEAKER_01: I'm not talking about the gifts that you wrap and unwrap, although if you are here and you've got some, I am available.
SPEAKER_01: Instead, what I'm talking about being with someone, presence.
SPEAKER_01: There's two basic components that I can kind of just spool out for this.
SPEAKER_01: The first one is this it is presence means putting aside my agenda.
SPEAKER_01: You have friends that just you can put aside your agenda with them?
SPEAKER_01: And you know that they're putting aside their agenda with you?
SPEAKER_01: You have friends that will be able to do that?
SPEAKER_01: Paul Waddell, again, it's part of the research for these types of sermons.
SPEAKER_01: Um, he's a Catholic scholar, and he wrote one of the best books I've ever read on friendship, and it's called Becoming Friends, oddly enough.
SPEAKER_01: And he says this about what true friendships really are, and then we'll dig into that passage up on the screen.
SPEAKER_01: But he says this about friendships.
SPEAKER_01: He says, true friendships are not relationships we control.
SPEAKER_01: Get that into your brain now.
SPEAKER_01: True friendships are not relationships we control, but they are adventures we enter into.
SPEAKER_01: Got friends like that?
SPEAKER_01: They're just adventures?
SPEAKER_01: No longer are you controlling or manipulating?
SPEAKER_01: He goes on to say this.
SPEAKER_01: Indeed, friendship is more a surrender than a conquest, more a loss of control than a calculated plan.
SPEAKER_01: Friendship is a matter of, now this is going to be the staple for everything else, mutual affection, reciprocal love, care, and concern.
SPEAKER_01: And we hear that and we go, okay, I've got one of those if we're married.
SPEAKER_01: And it might be my spouse, maybe.
SPEAKER_01: But maybe God's called us to gather and create and create these types of friendships with more than just our spouse.
SPEAKER_01: Certainly not our kids, but those that God has sovereignly placed along our path as we're bound for the promised land, those people that will join us on that journey towards Christ.
SPEAKER_01: These are the people that God's calling us to intentionally pursue so that we can, number one, be just be present with them.
SPEAKER_01: It means putting aside my agenda.
SPEAKER_01: What may be your agenda?
SPEAKER_01: Your joy, your agenda maybe to fix their problem or to fix them that they just really annoy you or bother you.
SPEAKER_01: Can't have that agenda.
SPEAKER_01: That's not the kind of spiritual friend that we're talking about.
SPEAKER_01: Instead, there is just a presence there that says, Yeah, I know you're all kinds of jacked up.
SPEAKER_01: And oh, by the way, so am I.
SPEAKER_01: No agenda to fix, no agenda to manipulate, definitely not an agenda to judge, not an agenda to escape when things get hard, or just to kind of sweep everything under the rug until all of a sudden the rug becomes a mountain in the middle of the living room and everybody's going, I don't know what the deal is with that rug.
SPEAKER_01: Been sweeping things underneath there for years.
SPEAKER_01: No, your agenda's got to be set aside, and we've got to accept one another just as we are, because if we're gonna just go where where we need to go, this is where relational manipulation goes to die, is inside of these types of friendships where we first commit to presence.
SPEAKER_01: Um it kind of happens for me randomly, and so my wife is a great instrument of my sanctification.
SPEAKER_01: Uh what I mean by that is that she reminds me that I am not who I am yet or who I should be yet, and I've got a long way to go.
SPEAKER_01: Uh just Friday night, we were out to dinner with some friends, and um she saw me not committing to presence.
SPEAKER_01: She knows that I believe these things, she's heard me preach and teach on these things before.
SPEAKER_01: She saw me kind of violating my own basic principle here of not being all there for the people that we were at dinner with, and she gave me one of these.
SPEAKER_01: Alright, you got that tap?
SPEAKER_01: Anybody that's married knows that tap, okay?
SPEAKER_01: Uh and so she kind of gives me one of these and she saw me.
SPEAKER_01: I was staring out the window.
SPEAKER_01: I don't know.
SPEAKER_01: I know exactly what I was doing, and I know exactly because I know.
SPEAKER_01: And I was all of a sudden I felt the tap, and I go, oh, I can easily justify this.
SPEAKER_01: We're fine.
SPEAKER_01: And what she was telling me was, hey, re-engage there, big boy.
SPEAKER_01: They're right in front of you.
SPEAKER_01: Just come on back to the table.
SPEAKER_01: I don't know where you are in the parking lot with your brain or with your eyes, I don't know what you're thinking about, but come on back to the people that are sitting right here in front of you because they need your presence as much as you need theirs.
SPEAKER_01: So come on back.
SPEAKER_01: I don't care if you're tired, don't care how long you've been up, don't matter what your day was like, come on back, they're right here in front of you.
SPEAKER_01: A commitment to presence.
SPEAKER_01: And we see this uh in we'll we'll look at two different um friendships of David, the first one being with Jonathan.
SPEAKER_01: Um if we know anything about Jonathan and David, we know this great unbelievable passage from 1 Samuel 18, 1 through 4.
SPEAKER_01: And if you've got your Bible, you can move back to the left and go there.
SPEAKER_01: But if you don't, again, it's on the screen.
SPEAKER_01: And it says this about this first friendship that we'll look at with David.
SPEAKER_01: Um it says, um, so so if we look at the context here, what we'll find is that David just got done slaying the giant, literally.
SPEAKER_01: He just got done killing Goliath.
SPEAKER_01: Um, and it gets kind of bloody from there that we kind of skip, like when they're telling this story back here or in the new children's building, when that gets done, they're gonna skip this part.
SPEAKER_01: But David brings the head of Goliath and brings it to Saul and was like, I am bad.
SPEAKER_01: Okay?
SPEAKER_01: And he goes in and Jonathan sees this, and here's the context of all this is David has already been anointed king, and yet Saul is on the throne still.
SPEAKER_01: Now, if you're Saul and you have a son named Jonathan, and Saul is the king, Jonathan would be the rightful heir to the throne.
SPEAKER_01: Yes?
SPEAKER_01: Okay, but David is the rightful heir to the throne because God said so.
SPEAKER_01: So if there was anybody that would have some jealousy or manipulation or an agenda at all, it would be Jonathan with David, because David's in his spot.
SPEAKER_01: But this is what Jonathan does.
SPEAKER_01: When he sees all this going down, he goes to Jonathan, or he goes to David and he says this.
SPEAKER_01: As soon as he had finished speaking to Saul, the soul of Jonathan was knit to the soul of David.
SPEAKER_01: Now, you dudes in the room, does that freak you out or what?
SPEAKER_01: Okay?
SPEAKER_01: It shouldn't.
SPEAKER_01: Absolutely it does, but that's probably because our of our what our culture says is okay and not okay.
SPEAKER_01: And so the Bible's given us a really good example of man to man, beautifully heterosexual, like phileo type of a love, brotherly love, where Jonathan is knit to David.
SPEAKER_01: You got that kind of friend?
SPEAKER_01: And Jonathan loved, and this is what it looks like.
SPEAKER_01: Jonathan loved him as his own soul.
SPEAKER_01: He is fulfilling the great command.
SPEAKER_01: Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength.
SPEAKER_01: And oh, by the way, love your neighbor as yourself.
SPEAKER_01: He's fulfilling that.
SPEAKER_01: And Saul took him in that day and would not let him go back to his father's house, and then keep going.
SPEAKER_01: Then Jonathan made a covenant with David.
SPEAKER_01: Hey, where you go, I will go.
SPEAKER_01: Your people will be my people.
SPEAKER_01: Your God is going to be my God.
SPEAKER_01: Okay?
SPEAKER_01: Wherever you go, I will go.
SPEAKER_01: There is a commitment here to presence.
SPEAKER_01: Then Jonathan made a covenant with David, and because he loved him, why?
SPEAKER_01: As his own soul.
SPEAKER_01: And Jonathan stripped himself of the robe that was on him, likely a royal robe, his identity, and he gave it to David, almost anointing him and confirming the anointing, gave it to David.
SPEAKER_01: And oh, by the way, the things that kept him safe, he took his armor off, he even gave him his sword and his bow and his belt.
SPEAKER_01: There is a self-sacrificing nature to just being present with someone else and committing to what God has said about the other person.
SPEAKER_01: It has yet to come to fruition, but you know there's something greater coming.
SPEAKER_01: And so you commit to that at whatever expense to yourself.
SPEAKER_01: That's the first commitment, a commitment to presence.
SPEAKER_01: And as he goes on, if we were just to keep reading in 1 Samuel, we come up two chapters later, and this is what is said about this relationship.
SPEAKER_01: Jonathan says to David, 1 Samuel 20, 42.
SPEAKER_01: He says, Jonathan said to David, Go in peace, because we have sworn both of us, friendship between us in the name of the Lord, saying, The Lord shall be between me and you, and between my offspring and your offspring forever.
SPEAKER_01: I love the way he puts it.
SPEAKER_01: The only thing that's going to come between us is the Lord.
SPEAKER_01: There's not one thing that I'm going to nitpick about you.
SPEAKER_01: There's a presence there and a commitment there that only the Lord will come between us.
SPEAKER_01: And how did that work its way out with David and Jonathan?
SPEAKER_01: If we know anything about the context of their friendship, we know that Saul all of a sudden turns mad and begins to try and kill David, pursues him for years.
SPEAKER_01: And David runs and runs and runs and hides in caves.
SPEAKER_01: And how is it that David is able to stay alive for so long?
SPEAKER_01: It's his present friend Jonathan, the king's son, that goes to David and says, Hey man, there's trouble coming.
SPEAKER_01: You need to move out.
SPEAKER_01: Hey man, uh something's about to happen.
SPEAKER_01: You need to go, maybe you need to go east or maybe west.
SPEAKER_01: Saul's coming.
SPEAKER_01: He alerts him of the danger ahead.
SPEAKER_01: He reports to them the latest nude of what's going on in the kingdom, and he warns him of what's going on.
SPEAKER_01: He encourages him in the truth.
SPEAKER_01: Don't we need this type of friend?
SPEAKER_01: Don't you need this type of friend?
SPEAKER_01: Just see danger coming in your life and report that to you and go, hey man, something's coming in your life and you need to know what's going on.
SPEAKER_01: So let me just kind of be present with you and encourage you here.
SPEAKER_01: We need that kind of friend.
SPEAKER_01: And here's what it continues to say about presence.
SPEAKER_01: If we're going to commit to that, not just that we kill our own agenda and what we think we deserve, but presence means we're also reliable.
SPEAKER_01: Many of us have seen great, potentially great friendships fall apart because of a lack of reliability.
SPEAKER_01: This is what Proverbs says in 1824.
SPEAKER_01: It says, one who has reliable friends soon, excuse me, one who has unreliable friends soon comes to ruin.
SPEAKER_01: But there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother.
SPEAKER_01: Spiritual friendship means that we've got to stick and stay.
SPEAKER_01: There is a presence that comes with becoming the friend that Jesus modeled for us and then he calls to build with others.
SPEAKER_01: Not just that, do we kind of commit to presence, but we also, our second commitment of spiritual friendship is that we've got to commit to honesty.
SPEAKER_01: Honesty, right?
SPEAKER_01: This is one that probably a lot of us like to be the truth teller, and none of us like to be the truth receiver.
SPEAKER_01: Whew, I know I'm one of those guys.
SPEAKER_01: Hey, give me the crusty, honest guy.
SPEAKER_01: I don't want to be the guy that has to receive that.
SPEAKER_01: But this is what the Bible says.
SPEAKER_01: Um, well, before I get to that, let me just say this.
SPEAKER_01: If we're gonna speak the truth to one another, and the Bible clearly says Old Testament and New, repeat it over and over again, speak the truth to one another in love.
SPEAKER_01: If we're gonna be able to do that, the only way we're gonna be able to do that is if we first commit to presence.
SPEAKER_01: Okay?
SPEAKER_01: We first commit to the other person and we communicate to the other person, hey, I'm for you, I'm with you, I love you, and oh, by the way, you got some spinach in your teeth.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, what however it works out, we need we need spinach in your teeth, friends.
SPEAKER_01: This is what this is all about.
SPEAKER_01: It's kind of a silly example, but when you go to lunch and you leave with spinach on your teeth and you work the rest of the day, go to a meeting or two, and you got spinach in your teeth, and no one tells you you got spinach in your teeth, you will value the spinach in your teeth, friend.
SPEAKER_01: But here's what the Bible says in Proverbs 27, 5 and 6.
SPEAKER_01: If we're gonna commit to spiritual friendship, if we're gonna commit to honesty, it says this better is open rebuke than hidden love.
SPEAKER_01: First part?
SPEAKER_01: So you can sweep as much stuff as you want under the rug, and that says that is not as good as just an open rebuke.
SPEAKER_01: It says, hey man, not gonna tolerate that.
SPEAKER_01: That's not okay.
SPEAKER_01: Friendship, parenting, wife, husband, whatever.
SPEAKER_01: Whatever relationship we're in, this this the the the truth remains.
SPEAKER_01: Better is open rebuke than hidden love, and then faithful are the wounds of a friend, profuse are the kisses of an enemy.
SPEAKER_01: Faithful are the wounds of a friend, profuse are the kisses of an enemy.
SPEAKER_01: If we are going to be friends, we've got to be willing to wound one another.
SPEAKER_01: Now that's something that's not very popular.
SPEAKER_01: We've got to be able and willing to just kind of just stick the dagger in a little bit, twist it, just and not because you're gonna get any satisfaction in that.
SPEAKER_01: See, remember, the motivation here is love.
SPEAKER_01: The motivation here is self-sacrificing and other building.
SPEAKER_01: And you've got to be able to wound one another so that we can grow and become the men and women that we have been called to become.
SPEAKER_01: Now, here is the great danger in all of this.
SPEAKER_01: Okay?
SPEAKER_01: Is that we start to speak truth to one another to prove a friendship.
SPEAKER_01: Let me kind of illustrate it like this.
SPEAKER_01: Um, you you there's a huge difference between I love you and therefore I speak the truth to you.
SPEAKER_01: There's that, which is good and right and appropriate.
SPEAKER_01: There's that kind of way to do it, and then there's the other way that you've maybe experienced, and you kind of go, hey, I'm gonna speak the truth to you and therefore prove to you that I love you somehow.
SPEAKER_01: The first way is the way that God's called us to do this is because I love you, now I will speak the truth to you.
SPEAKER_01: Instead of I'm gonna speak the truth to you to prove somehow that I love you.
SPEAKER_01: One works and one doesn't.
SPEAKER_01: And that's just the way God has designed it.
SPEAKER_01: And so there's got to be absolutely a huge difference between how we do this.
SPEAKER_01: And so, if we get to this whole truth telling thing and honesty commitment, um let me just kind of point you also to um how God.
SPEAKER_01: Has designed for this to go.
SPEAKER_01: That there should be gentleness and respect when we do this.
SPEAKER_01: Proverbs 24, 26, just a couple of chapters before this main passage here, it says this whoever gives an honest answer kisses the lips.
SPEAKER_01: Whoever gives an honest answer shows a sign of affection and of love and of commitment.
SPEAKER_01: That's who gives an honest answer.
SPEAKER_01: That's what it looks like to give an honest answer.
SPEAKER_01: There's this, there's just there's just intimate fellowship, there's this sign of love and affection.
SPEAKER_01: And so if we're truth tellers, which I'll go ahead and call myself one, uh if you've ever been in a small group with me, then you'll go, man, I do not like that guy for very much longer.
SPEAKER_01: I used to like him before we were close, and now I'm not so sure.
SPEAKER_01: Uh the last small group that I led, I mean, we were three or four meetings in, and I said, Hey, when you talk, other people come out.
SPEAKER_01: Can I hear what you're what you have what you think about the subject?
SPEAKER_01: Oh, I'm offended.
SPEAKER_01: And he came up to me three days later, he goes, I don't want to tell you, man, I was so angry at you all weekend long.
SPEAKER_01: But you're right.
SPEAKER_01: Like, okay, I wasn't trying to be right.
SPEAKER_01: I was just trying to maybe invite you into trusting yourself rather than all these other sources.
SPEAKER_01: Um, but there's gotta be some, there's gotta be that, and hopefully, I don't know if I did it right that time, but hopefully I'll get it right one day where we when we give an honest answer, it's it's an affectionate uh type of an answer.
SPEAKER_01: And so here's my question to myself first, and then to you Does the way you speak the truth to people feel more like a punch in the face or a kiss on the lips?
SPEAKER_01: Oh, y'all don't like me now.
SPEAKER_01: I can see it.
SPEAKER_01: See, honesty is face-to-face, but it shouldn't always result in a bloody nose.
SPEAKER_01: Sometimes it should, but not always.
SPEAKER_01: Um, and so we've got to have more gentleness than that.
SPEAKER_01: And here's what I'd say to that: that we've got to quit letting our flesh apply the scripture and instead continue to yield to the spirit when we go, okay, I'm gonna now speak the truth to you.
SPEAKER_01: And here's how that looks for me.
SPEAKER_01: I got four months worth of, I don't know, whatever I got against you, and now I've just heard a sermon on speaking the truth, and so I'm gonna take my four months of offense and come after you at lunch.
SPEAKER_01: Okay, that's not okay.
SPEAKER_01: That's again, ooh, speak the truth in love.
SPEAKER_01: Ooh, well, look at all this truth I got.
SPEAKER_01: Here we go.
SPEAKER_01: Well, here's the deal there's a mutual reciprocal of that you're gonna have to kind of yield, and so if you're gonna do this spiritual friendship thing, if you just want to be.
SPEAKER_01: Well, I don't have a word for it.
SPEAKER_01: I do have many words for it, but none that I can say right here.
SPEAKER_01: If you just want to be that guy, then go and just speak the truth.
SPEAKER_01: But if you want to have mutual friendships, spiritual friendships, then you've got to receive as well as give.
SPEAKER_01: And so here's kind of the question.
SPEAKER_01: Well, and here's how it works its way out.
SPEAKER_01: I said there was Nathan, there was uh Jonathan and there was David.
SPEAKER_01: There's also another uh friendship of David's, and his name was Nathan.
SPEAKER_01: And if we were to read in 2 Samuel 12, we would see this gentle but very firm rebuke of David's character.
SPEAKER_01: Because yes, David killed the man, uh the giant named Goliath, but not too long later, he did some pretty heinous things, like saw another woman, another man's wife, took her into his own home and committed adultery, and then when she became pregnant, began to just cover up and just kind of go, oh man.
SPEAKER_01: All right, we gotta do something about this.
SPEAKER_01: I know what I'll do.
SPEAKER_01: I'll kill your husband.
SPEAKER_01: What?
SPEAKER_01: And so he kills her husband.
SPEAKER_01: This is King David, the man after God's own heart.
SPEAKER_01: And he does that, and then all of a sudden, he just kind of goes on and acts like nothing's wrong and continues trying to establish a new normal.
SPEAKER_01: Meanwhile, who knows what Bathsheba's going through?
SPEAKER_01: We don't really get that part.
SPEAKER_01: But we know that she's pregnant, we know that she just buried her husband, and now she's married to a stranger who is the king.
SPEAKER_01: And all of a sudden, Nathan comes into the picture in 2 Samuel 12.
SPEAKER_01: And as the story goes, God sent Nathan to David to rebuke him, to tell the truth to him, to have an honest reflection of what his heinous sin was going to bring about David's kingdom and David's son.
SPEAKER_01: And he delivers that bad news.
SPEAKER_01: If there's anybody that would have been afraid of being honest to his friend, I would imagine it was Nathan who just saw his friend kill somebody else for not being in the right place and not being married to the wrong to the right person.
SPEAKER_01: So Nathan comes and he delivers the bad news.
SPEAKER_01: And when he does so, I love this is why David is a man after God's own heart.
SPEAKER_01: Because in verse 13 of 2 Samuel 12, it says, David responded and he says, I have sinned against the Lord.
SPEAKER_01: You don't hear anything about a quabble or a quibble, but I mean she was pretty.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, she was naked on the roof.
SPEAKER_01: What do you want me to do, David?
SPEAKER_01: I mean, come on, buddy.
SPEAKER_01: No, none of that.
SPEAKER_01: Instead, instant ownership of his sin.
SPEAKER_01: He repents.
SPEAKER_01: And he couldn't get away from the consequences.
SPEAKER_01: The consequences stayed with him.
SPEAKER_01: But he repents, and that's what created this man after God's own heart.
SPEAKER_01: But notice how it happened.
SPEAKER_01: Nathan goes to him, and it's a very gentle but very firm rebuke, doesn't call him names, and just kind of comes into his life and puts a mirror up to him and reminds him, much like we all need, reminds him, your heart is deep and your heart is dark, and you need to repent.
SPEAKER_01: Otherwise, you are going down a road that you don't want to go down.
SPEAKER_01: We need people that will stand in front of us and just go face to face with us.
SPEAKER_01: For me, it comes in unexpected packages sometimes.
SPEAKER_01: Sometimes my kids, sometimes my wife, sometimes you, sometimes whoever.
SPEAKER_01: My wife and I were out to dinner with some friends long ago, and we were talking about spiritual things and kind of hanging out, and we were at carabas for crying out loud.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, I love me some carabas.
SPEAKER_01: I have me some chicken brine, and I was enjoying that goat cheese and that chicken and whatever special sauce they have on there, and those, those, those sunrise tomatoes, and a nice Caesar salad, and I'm enjoying all this.
SPEAKER_01: We start going into spiritual things, and the girl, my wife's friend, um, that y'all probably know, though I'm not gonna say her name, she just looks at me and she, not in these words, but basically says this so um, so that pride and arrogance that's in you, now is that gonna be a part of your past or part of your future?
SPEAKER_01: Hang on, there's a there's a shiv in me somewhere, I know.
SPEAKER_01: And she just smiled.
SPEAKER_01: Just wanted to know what you were thinking.
SPEAKER_01: Be part of your past or part of your future.
SPEAKER_01: Well, I appreciate you asking that.
SPEAKER_01: No, I don't.
SPEAKER_01: But you know what?
SPEAKER_01: Now, there's part of me that was like, hey, can you tell your husband next time and have him deliver the news?
SPEAKER_01: Because that was offensive to me.
SPEAKER_01: All of a sudden I become spiritual somehow, like that spiritual, because it's not.
SPEAKER_01: But the reality is all of a sudden I get to this and I go, okay, I can look back on that.
SPEAKER_01: I wasn't even offended.
SPEAKER_01: I was actually I was very thankful in the moment.
SPEAKER_01: Um, and I I don't think I repented in the moment, but I was like, you know, that's a great question.
SPEAKER_01: I need to consider that.
SPEAKER_01: Thank you for pointing that out to me.
SPEAKER_01: Uh but here's the deal I wouldn't trade that conversation for the world.
SPEAKER_01: I wouldn't trade those relationships, that person that's committed to me, and I they know I'm committed to them because they also know if they're gonna say something like that to me, they better be ready if I got something for them.
SPEAKER_01: And I don't.
SPEAKER_01: I don't have just something held back going, oh well, now that you're saying that to me, here I got something for you.
SPEAKER_01: Not at all.
SPEAKER_01: Instead, I just considered it.
SPEAKER_01: Thank you, appreciate you, prideful and arrogant.
SPEAKER_01: I got the message.
SPEAKER_01: We need that.
SPEAKER_01: We need those kind of people that just sit across from us at a table and just go, hey, have you considered this?
SPEAKER_01: You're going down a wrong path.
SPEAKER_01: And if you consider this for the future, you're not gonna be who God wants you to be.
SPEAKER_01: We need that commitment to honesty as well as a commitment to presence.
SPEAKER_01: And so a little practical application for our commitment to honesty is this.
SPEAKER_01: Do you have a spiritual friend?
SPEAKER_01: Maybe it's your spouse.
SPEAKER_01: You should, by the way, your spouse should be in that inner circle.
SPEAKER_01: Okay?
SPEAKER_01: They should be, in my opinion, I think they should be your best friend.
SPEAKER_01: Some of you may disagree with that.
SPEAKER_01: I don't really care, I'm not gonna fight about it.
SPEAKER_01: But so I really do agree, I really do believe that.
SPEAKER_01: So maybe it's your spouse, maybe it's somebody else that you're golfing buddy or whatever.
SPEAKER_01: This is a practical application.
SPEAKER_01: You go to them and you just basically just you need to ask the Lord, do I need to say anything to them for their betterment and at my expense?
SPEAKER_01: Remember, it's just not full bore, you know, opening up the valve and just kind of being honest with people.
SPEAKER_01: It's something for them so that they can grow, usually at my expense.
SPEAKER_01: And then here's the better part.
SPEAKER_01: Then ask them, what can I receive from you so that I can grow?
SPEAKER_01: And not just being a truth teller, but a truth receiver as well.
SPEAKER_01: See, that's the commitment, a reciprocal commitment to honesty.
SPEAKER_01: Not only are those two things absolutely viable and valuable for our spiritual life and the reality of committing as spiritual friends, but we also need this, and it's kind of this intimate dance between truth and the third commitment, which is encouragement.
SPEAKER_01: We need encouragement.
SPEAKER_01: We were created for encouragement, to need it.
SPEAKER_01: It's just part of how we are.
SPEAKER_01: And oh, by the way, we are commanded to get it.
SPEAKER_01: Here's how I define encouragement.
SPEAKER_01: There's one thing that I think encouragement is it's reminding people of what God has done, and so that they can be reminded of who they are and what they need to do.
SPEAKER_01: It's reminding people of what God has done and who God is so that other people can be reminded of who they are and what they need to do.
SPEAKER_01: When we look at this passage here in a second of Hebrews 10, that word for encouragement is the same exact word for the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_01: That should be interesting for us because if we were to keep reading of that passage that was read earlier, the very next verse, it says that Jesus says, I'm gonna send you a counselor, a helper, an advocate.
SPEAKER_01: That's what we're supposed to be for each other.
SPEAKER_01: Now, we're not gonna play the role of the Holy Spirit, or you're gonna get yourself in some dangerous waters if you start thinking you're the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_01: Okay, especially relationally with friends.
SPEAKER_01: Instead, it's mirroring the Holy Spirit to be able to just come alongside people and point them into the direction that you know God wants them to go.
SPEAKER_01: Because one of the things the Holy Spirit does is what?
SPEAKER_01: He leads us into the truth about God and about ourselves so that we can do what we're supposed to do.
SPEAKER_01: So we can look at that.
SPEAKER_01: We've got to be reminded that we need friends to help teach us things about ourselves and about God and to keep us from continuing to live and believe lives, lies that are in us.
SPEAKER_01: Dietrich Bonhoeffer says this from Life Together.
SPEAKER_01: Um, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, you don't know who he was, he died in a concentration camp, was executed by the Nazis uh for a lot of different things, but mainly his his Christian faith and how he chose to live that out.
SPEAKER_01: But he says this uh in a great little book, short, small book on life together, but very, very powerful book.
SPEAKER_01: If you want to read something, that would be a good one to start with.
SPEAKER_01: He says this therefore the Christian needs another Christian who speaks God's word to him.
SPEAKER_01: See what we're called to do as friends?
SPEAKER_01: Just to speak God's word to each other.
SPEAKER_01: He needs him again and again when he becomes uncertain and discouraged.
SPEAKER_01: For by himself, he cannot help himself without belying the truth.
SPEAKER_01: The Christ in his own heart is weaker than the Christ in the word of his brother.
SPEAKER_01: His own heart is uncertain, his brother's is sure.
SPEAKER_01: Whether we want to admit it or not, there are times in our lives when we will be depressed, we will be discouraged, we will be downtrodden, we will begin to read the Psalms like nobody's business, because the Psalms are kind of that recalibration of going, okay, other people have felt like this over the years, and we're gonna need other people who have God's word hidden in them to be able to speak God's word to encourage us, to point us in the right direction, to keep us going towards Jesus when we're ready to give up, we've had a shattered dream in our life, whatever life has not ended up how it should, how we thought it should be, we need other people to be able to come alongside us and encourage us along the way.
SPEAKER_01: Hebrews 10 would say this, 24 and 25, it's that passage up on the screen, and it says this.
SPEAKER_01: Talking about continuing on in the faith.
SPEAKER_01: And let us consider how to stir up one another.
SPEAKER_01: Okay, that's the honesty part, right?
SPEAKER_01: The word for stirring up one another is literally to dig your spurs into the side of another person.
SPEAKER_01: That's literally what it means.
SPEAKER_01: To stir one another up.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, there is there's an honesty there that says, all right, I'm not doing this for my own good, I'm doing this for your own good.
SPEAKER_01: And what are we doing it for?
SPEAKER_01: For love?
SPEAKER_01: That's why it's good, that's why it's worth it, and good works.
SPEAKER_01: So we've got to be honest with this commitment to honesty.
SPEAKER_01: Let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together.
SPEAKER_01: Oh, there's that presence.
SPEAKER_01: There's being together.
SPEAKER_01: But encourage, uh, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, coming alongside them, pointing the way, mirroring the Holy Spirit in each other, kind of speaking the truth to each other so that we can not forget whose we are and what we're supposed to be about, all the more as you see the day drawing near.
SPEAKER_01: See, as Jesus, as he as that day becomes closer and closer and closer, we should be encouraging, encouraging, and encouraging more and more and more.
SPEAKER_01: So why don't we?
SPEAKER_01: When's the last time you've encouraged somebody?
SPEAKER_01: Besides your kids for reading a good book?
SPEAKER_01: Or whatever.
SPEAKER_01: That's my phase of life.
SPEAKER_01: When's the last time you've received that encouragement?
SPEAKER_01: Because it is a command, it isn't just a suggestion, but let me just say this our growth as the big C church, universal church, American, all over the world church, and as individuals depends on three things presence, honesty, and encouragement so far.
SPEAKER_01: And then here's the deal.
SPEAKER_01: If we keep reading in chapter 10, let me just read the next verse.
SPEAKER_01: It says, For if we go on sinning deliberately after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins.
SPEAKER_01: Instead, here's what may happen if we don't encourage one another.
SPEAKER_01: We may go on deliberately sinning and therefore fall into the hands of an angry God and fall into the hands of judgment and punishment.
SPEAKER_01: So if we don't encourage one another, if we don't meet together, if we don't speak the truth to one another in love, that's the danger.
SPEAKER_01: See why this is important?
SPEAKER_01: See why this is valuable, absolutely valuable for your life and for mine?
SPEAKER_01: And so I guess the question coming out of encouraging one another, who do you need to encourage this week?
SPEAKER_01: And maybe you know somebody that just needs a little bit of just shoulder-to-shoulder contact, not necessarily face to face, but shoulder to shoulder.
SPEAKER_01: Who do you need to encourage this week?
SPEAKER_01: As I was preparing for this sermon, I was reminded of a guy that came alongside me whenever I was in seminary.
SPEAKER_01: Uh he was an older guy.
SPEAKER_01: Um, probably uh for me, I was I think I was 26 at the time, and so he was in his probably late 60s, um, early 60s for me.
SPEAKER_01: That obviously that's older.
SPEAKER_01: Um, and so you know, he comes alongside me, and I just I went to him one day.
SPEAKER_01: I was a youth pastor, didn't know what I was doing, but probably thought I did, because remember the prideful and arrogant question comment about my life.
SPEAKER_01: Um and so I probably knew everything that I was doing and just didn't, and so we ran out of money.
SPEAKER_01: We were in seminary, and uh my wife and I were both holding down jobs, so it wasn't we weren't working, we just ran money, didn't know how we were gonna pay for seminary, had no idea how God was gonna provide, but we were certainly expecting that he would.
SPEAKER_01: And so I went up to this guy and I he was um he'd uh played the stock market for years, early retiree, um, and just was living the life.
SPEAKER_01: And um, I just said, hey man, you know anybody that knows how to raise funds or like knows how to get funds?
SPEAKER_01: I mean, I I mean I got a long way to go in seminary here.
SPEAKER_01: I need to be able to kind of, yes, I'm gonna work, but just I mean, what what kind of advice could you give a guy like me?
SPEAKER_01: Well, what do you need?
SPEAKER_01: I need about 3,500 bucks for next semester alone.
SPEAKER_01: He goes, Okay, I'll take care of it.
SPEAKER_01: What?
SPEAKER_01: You're gonna do what?
SPEAKER_01: I don't even know you, man.
SPEAKER_01: He goes, yeah, I'll just take care of it.
SPEAKER_01: It's fine.
SPEAKER_01: I was like, okay, all of a sudden I became a fundraiser and I didn't even know what I was doing at that point.
SPEAKER_01: But here's the deal.
SPEAKER_01: I wrote him this last week, and I hadn't talked to him in years.
SPEAKER_01: Um, and that wasn't the only check that he gave.
SPEAKER_01: He gave the next semester's check as well.
SPEAKER_01: Um, but that's not even why I called or why I why I emailed him to remind him and to encourage him.
SPEAKER_01: Why I encouraged him and why I wrote out to him was yes, to say thank you for those things.
SPEAKER_01: Here's kind of the fruit of what you've given, but also just to say, hey, even back then to a young punk youth pastor, you were showing me the way and just how rare it was for a man of your age to be living the way that you live.
SPEAKER_01: See, the part of the story that I'm leaving out is that he wasn't a pastor.
SPEAKER_01: He's just a lay person, untrained, and yet every Sunday he would go to seven nursing homes and encourage the seasoned saints with the word of God.
SPEAKER_01: Every single Sunday.
SPEAKER_01: And he would invite me to go along and he would show me the way of how Christianity is supposed to be lived out, even in your 60s, even in your 70s.
SPEAKER_01: And that's what I called to say thank you for, because I have come to realize just how rare that man is.
SPEAKER_01: And just, hey man, I just want to say thank you for the gifts that you've given to us.
SPEAKER_01: But let me also just say thank you for just living a life that was well lived.
SPEAKER_01: Just like Jesus said, that I I chose you so that you would go and and bear fruit that would abide.
SPEAKER_01: Thank you for modeling that out for me.
SPEAKER_01: He wrote me back, hey, thank you for pointing for for just kind of reaching out to me.
SPEAKER_01: You have no idea how much your words mean to me.
SPEAKER_01: When I get back in town, let's hook up, let's, let's, let's catch up.
SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
SPEAKER_01: That only comes with a life well lived, and then just being able to encourage one another along in the journey.
SPEAKER_01: Who do you need to encourage this week?
SPEAKER_01: There's somebody, I can guarantee it.
SPEAKER_01: There's somebody you need to encourage.
SPEAKER_01: So not only are we to be a people of presence, of honesty, of encouragement, but all this hinges on this final commitment of spiritual friendship, and that is a mutual pursuit of Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: This inner circle, it kind of sounds, like I said, it kind of sounds uh, I don't know, like you're doing favoritism.
SPEAKER_01: But like I said, Jesus brought in an inner circle, and guess who wasn't there?
SPEAKER_01: Judas.
SPEAKER_01: See, when he's talking to his disciples in John 15, Judas has already been excused out of the room.
SPEAKER_01: When he invites James and John and Peter up to the Mount of Transfiguration into the Garden of Gethsemane, Judas is gone.
SPEAKER_01: In fact, he's betraying him in that moment.
SPEAKER_01: So all of a sudden, we've got to have a mutual pursuit of Christ.
SPEAKER_01: If you're going to have these people that are really close to you, I would say this the biblical example is that they are believers, not non-believers.
SPEAKER_01: And let me just read a piece of scripture to help uh help us understand that.
SPEAKER_01: 2 Corinthians 6, 14 to 16 says this.
SPEAKER_01: Do not be equally yoked with unbelievers.
SPEAKER_01: Now we read that and we go, okay, I don't really understand the yoke part, but I got it.
SPEAKER_01: Uh but here it says traditionally we've kind of applied this to our marriages, and this is true.
SPEAKER_01: If you're gonna get married, you should not be married to an unbeliever.
SPEAKER_01: And if you already are married to a non-believer and you are a believer, stay the course, and God will do amazing things.
SPEAKER_01: Okay?
SPEAKER_01: But here's the deal.
SPEAKER_01: When we're preparing people for marriage, we've got to, this is one of those passages we go to to make sure that they're equally yoked.
SPEAKER_01: And it comes from the Old Testament in Deuteronomy when God says, don't yoke together a donkey and an ox.
SPEAKER_01: Why is that a command?
SPEAKER_01: Because if you have an ox yoked up and you're gonna plow the field and you got a donkey next to it, you're gonna be doing these.
SPEAKER_01: And the ox is gonna be doing all the work, and the donkey is gonna be doing nothing.
SPEAKER_01: Okay?
SPEAKER_01: And the same thing goes.
SPEAKER_01: So all of a sudden you you yoke together an ox and an ox, and you're plowing some pretty straight fields, right?
SPEAKER_01: Now all of a sudden we're getting ready for harvest.
SPEAKER_01: It's the same thing for our marriages, same thing for our friendships.
SPEAKER_01: If we get yoked up together with a donkey, we're gonna be going in circles for our whole life.
SPEAKER_01: But it's worse than just different kinds of animals.
SPEAKER_01: Instead, the passage continues on.
SPEAKER_01: It says, Do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers if you're a believer.
SPEAKER_01: For what partnership has righteousness, look, look at these two big categories, righteousness with lawlessness, not anything in between.
SPEAKER_01: Righteousness, lawlessness.
SPEAKER_01: What fellowship has light with darkness?
SPEAKER_01: He would continue on.
SPEAKER_01: What accord has Christ with Satan?
SPEAKER_01: Belial.
SPEAKER_01: Or what portion does a believer share with an unbeliever?
SPEAKER_01: And he would continue to say this: what agreement has the temple of God with idols?
SPEAKER_01: Because, oh, by the way, you are the temple of the living God.
SPEAKER_01: See, God has basically brought us into this relationship with himself, chosen us, brought us into a friendship with himself, and he has committed to presence.
SPEAKER_01: He lives inside of each one of us.
SPEAKER_01: He has committed to honesty, he has committed to encouragement, and he has committed to our pursuit of himself.
SPEAKER_01: That's why it's all modeled out for each one of us.
SPEAKER_01: And so here's the kind of the application for this point.
SPEAKER_01: Some of us probably need to get rid of some of the inner circle friends that we have.
SPEAKER_01: Um, as I continue to come alongside many of us in this church, and we kind of hear the stories of many of us in this church, um, one of the biggest factors of your spiritual life and spiritual growth, yes is your wife, yes, is your kids, yes, is your job, but oh, by the way, is your friends.
SPEAKER_01: And if you've got unbelievers that are you're you're you're kind of sharing your soul with and you're demanding that of them, there's a whole lot here that's at stake that we've got to maybe reevaluate who's in that inner circle and kind of put them over here in a different circle because they don't belong in the inner part.
SPEAKER_01: Now, you can put them out here and still be friends with them.
SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
SPEAKER_01: Matter of fact, it now becomes a Ministry, because now you're trying to bring them into a closer relationship or a new relationship with Jesus, but they have no business being yoked up with an ox at all.
SPEAKER_01: I had lunch with somebody not too long ago, and uh this is kind of how this worked its way out in his life.
SPEAKER_01: Um he came up to me and he said, Hey, uh, I'm thinking about divorcing my wife.
SPEAKER_01: And I was like, Okay, we haven't even really gotten our food yet, but we're getting right into this.
SPEAKER_01: Um, I think about divorcing my wife.
SPEAKER_01: I said, Okay, um help me understand why you've come to this conclusion.
SPEAKER_01: I want to help.
SPEAKER_01: I want to, whatever I can do.
SPEAKER_01: Uh you um tell me about it.
SPEAKER_01: He goes, Yeah.
SPEAKER_01: You know, she just doesn't do anything for me.
SPEAKER_01: Uh I mean, I provide for her, I pay for her for everything.
SPEAKER_01: Uh she just, you know, she just doesn't do anything.
SPEAKER_01: She doesn't even clean the house.
SPEAKER_01: She's nothing, I mean I don't really get any benefit from this.
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
SPEAKER_01: Um I think we need to go maybe to counseling.
SPEAKER_01: You guys talk to anybody?
SPEAKER_01: Can I talk to y'all?
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, we've done that, and I mean my friends, they've they've told me that I deserve better than this.
SPEAKER_01: And so I think I'm just done.
SPEAKER_01: And I looked at him and I said, I mean, it was like a like the cartoon where the bull sees the red and just, woo.
SPEAKER_01: I just, I really tried to just hold back the reins, but I just said, hey man, your friends are awful.
SPEAKER_01: You need to get new friends.
SPEAKER_01: If that's the advice they're giving you, you gotta you gotta cut them out of your life, man.
SPEAKER_01: Not you don't need to cut your wife out of your life, you need to cut your friends out of your life.
SPEAKER_01: Where's your loyalty?
SPEAKER_01: For crying out loud.
SPEAKER_01: So I just said, You your friends are awful.
SPEAKER_01: And oh, by the way, let me be a friend and tell you some things.
SPEAKER_01: This is what God says about marriage.
SPEAKER_01: This is what God says about divorce.
SPEAKER_01: There are a few things that God says in the word that he hates.
SPEAKER_01: This kind of divorce, he hates.
SPEAKER_01: And we ate our salads and we talked a little bit longer.
SPEAKER_01: And I don't know if they're married or divorced, but I do know that he's trying to save his marriage.
SPEAKER_01: Thank God.
SPEAKER_01: But a whole lot of damage had been done to that point, all because he had the wrong friends telling him to do the wrong thing.
SPEAKER_01: Some of us need to get that darkness and dare I say satanic influence out of the inner circle of who God wants us to be shaped by, and oh, by the way, who we need to shape as well.
SPEAKER_01: So, great question about friendship that we can end on and be done, believe it or not, is basically this.
SPEAKER_01: Does this friendship point me to Jesus or does it point me somewhere else?
SPEAKER_01: And to tie it back into last week's sermon, does this friendship, does this person help me pursue the things of God, or does it help me pursue the things of man?
SPEAKER_01: Who am I becoming as a result of these people around me?
SPEAKER_01: And oh, by the way, who are they becoming as a result of my presence in their lives?
SPEAKER_01: Because remember, there's a mutuality here, a one-anotherness here that God wants and has commanded for us.
SPEAKER_01: And all these things, that the passage we started with, John 15, it starts with, as I have loved you, so you love one another.
SPEAKER_01: And it ends with the same way.
SPEAKER_01: There's a mutuality, a pursuit of Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: Who's close?
SPEAKER_01: And who maybe do you need to kind of put over here in its rightful place so that you can begin to speak to them and be present with them and all those different things, but they're all of a sudden not going to be that person of mutual understanding and mutual growth.
SPEAKER_01: Are they bringing me closer to Jesus or are they bringing me anywhere else?
SPEAKER_01: Are they pointing me to myself, or are they pointing me to be to others, or are they pointing me to the author and perfecter of my faith?
SPEAKER_01: With that, would you all stand with me and let me speak a word of blessing over you?
SPEAKER_01: Hold your hands out like this.
SPEAKER_01: Although you were once a slave, you are now sons and daughters, friends of the God who created the universe.
SPEAKER_01: That's pretty special.
SPEAKER_01: Go now and love others as he's loved you.
SPEAKER_01: In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_01: Amen.